Terrible Tuesday
One of the local television news stations invited victims to send in “Our Story” about the tornado in Wichita Falls in 1979. Rather than talk to them about what we went through, I thought I’d write it for this paper.
It was a Tuesday, April 10, 1979. My husband was working as a diesel tractor mechanic for the John Deere dealership. The company I worked for was having some financial difficulties and I had taken the day off to help their budget.
I stayed in the mobile home off the freeway, and did some thorough house cleaning. All the laundry was done and carefully laid out on the bed - evidence that I hadn’t just sat around and read novels all day. The last load of work clothes for my husband was in the dryer.
It was my husband’s birthday and I had broiled some steaks and made some of his favorite sides, ready for when he got home from work somewhere about 5 p.m.
The television had been talking about storms in Vernon and Seymour (I think). So I wasn’t surprised that the day was cloudy and dreary.
At lunch, my brotherin- law had purchased the mobile home right next to us that he had been renting. Both he and my husband came from work and didn’t like the things blowing around in the west. One of them climbed up our porch rail and noted that things were getting ugly. Just in case, we piled into my brother-in-law’s full size pickup. I was barefoot, I grabbed my purse with the important stuff in it and my cat and we headed for Henrietta. (By the way, Henrietta had suffered a tornado after we headed back to Wichita Falls to see the damage.)
After the clouds cleared out west of Henrietta, we headed back to Wichita Falls and our mobile home park. It was difficult to determine where our mobile home was in the pile that was the mobile home park. I borrowed my brotherin- law’s extra work boots that were in his truck and closed the cat up in the cab while we looked for our mobile home.
The mobile home was flattened. The one to the west of us, my brotherin- law’s recent purchase, was on top of the mobile home west of its original location, which happened to be the home of the father of the man who sold it.
The mobile home east of ours that had belonged to a couple of women and their pet, a small dog, was just gone. We found the dog underneath the recliner in our pile. He was petrified, and once we figured out where he was and let him out, he was gone. David Penn managed to get a picture of that recliner, with a 2 by 4 poked all through the center of the back.
We picked up a few things that were valuable and drove to my in-law’s house north of Olney.
Phone lines were haywire. I went to call my mother, and before I could dial my dad was on the phone! He’d been trying to call Mother to check on us. I was able to reassure him and let him know that we were okay. Then I called Mother and let her know.
The next day, my husband, his brother, and my dad went to the site and started digging through what was left. My concerns were the babydoll I’d gotten when I was 3, and an envelope that had my wedding bands, another ring and the stone that had fallen out, and a necklace in it, I planned to have them repaired.
The northern most bedroom had been filled with a bed, two window unit air conditioners, and some keepsakes, like the tassel from my 1976 graduation. Rather than red or white, the tassel was red white and blue - USA Bicentennial. My husband’s class ring had been in a jewelry box. We had picked it up, but it got set down and we suspect someone decided they needed it worse than we did, so they smashed the jewelry box.
The clothes that we recovered had to all be re-washed, fiberglass in the fabric was dealt with by vinegar in the wash. Fortunately, my husband’s work clothes were still in the dryer. And the birthday steaks were still in the broiler!
We did have insurance on the mobile home. That Wednesday, representatives of the insurance company were there with checks for the mobile home and the “contents”, plus a “disaster” relocation check April 10, one of the things we were able to find was the information for our income taxes for 1978. We had the forms filled out and ready to go, due to a clerical error in the tractor dealer’s bookkeeper, we were going to have to pay $3,000. I put it in the mail, and opened a post office box for our new home in Olney, which we didn’t have yet.
I was rather upset when I learned that there was a disaster exemption that we were able to apply to the 1978 taxes. The returns I had mailed the day before were returned due to insufficient postage! We went and filed for the disaster exemption and actually got a refund for the 1978 taxes due to the 1979 disaster losses.
For quite some time afterwards, I couldn’t talk about what we went through, though it was miraculous how things ended up. I guess it was anxiety, just recalling things. Today it might be considered PTSD, but settling down again, the anxiety went away.
We moved back to Olney, rented, then purchased my mother’s house; she had remarried in March that year. We had been trying to figure out how to return to Olney, we were talking about having children and wanted them to have the small town education we had.
The good Lord looked out for us in the disaster. As He does each and every day.